The Kidney Stories Toolkit presents a range of kidney stories which are important stories to know and pass on. They tell you what life is like with kidney disease.

If you have sick kidneys, your health team may tell you these stories to help you live better with your condition. If you know someone with sick kidneys, tell them about these stories too.

The stories are presented in different ways. Some are flipchart stories and others are videos on YouTube.

Note: These Kidney Stories are mainly presented with graphics; however, please note that some stories may contain drawings and voices of people who have died.

Kidney Stories Toolkit

Here are the individual Kidney Stories in this flipchart series which you can look at in a pdf format, or download to save to your desktop if you wish. If you are a health professional, you may wish to print the sheets in colour, to go through the stories with your patient.

During the national community consultations with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to inform the development of the KHA-CARI guidelines. One patient, Inawinytji Williamson, painted a depiction of her kidney journey.

IInawinytji explains the white circles are a representation of all Indigenous Australians kidney patients coming together with health professionals to yarn about kidney health.

The outside circles represent all the patients on life-saving dialysis and the two footpaths show the journey of Indigenous kidney patients through wildflowers.

Videos

Here are two other support videos we suggest you should view.

‘Let the medicine come to you. PD – It's easy’

This 15-minute video is about living with PD, which is peritoneal dialysis, also called home dialysis. The person who tells (and sings) the story is the well-known entertainer Jimmy Little. It’s best to watch the video with your health team, who can tell you more about living with dialysis.

‘Transplant story: A personal journey’ This seven-minute video tells the real-life story of an Indigenous Australian family living with kidney disease. It’s about a young man, Ronno, who had a kidney transplant when he was a child. The kidney lasted 24 years before it stopped working. Since the video was made, Ronno has received a second kidney transplant. Find details of this movie, produced by Menzies School of Health Research here.

For further information you can phone Menzies School of Health Research on 08 8946 8600 or email info@menzies.edu.au

Other resources (kidney related) from Menzies Health are available here.